


Breathe, scream, cry and love

by Yui_Kuromori



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Coming of Age, F/F, F/M, Future relationships to be added - Freeform, M/M, Mike flat irons his hair, Mike’s bi awakening, Whimsical, just a cute fluffy self discovery story that could be a Netflix indie aesthetic movie, probably byler, you can’t convince me otherwise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2020-06-25 00:19:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19734577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yui_Kuromori/pseuds/Yui_Kuromori
Summary: Mike Wheeler had just come after one of the most traumatic weeks of his life, then, his best friend and girlfriend leave. Now his mom decides to ship him of to an isolated town in another state to stay with his aunt, in an attempt to help him relax, and become an normal human being.Enter an absent aunt, a weird cousin, a fiery redhead and a crazy guy who is definitely hitting on him.





	1. I always get to where i’m going by walking away from where I’ve been

\- WHAT?! UNTIL WINTER BREAK?!

Mike spread his arms and hunched his back a little, in clear indignation. Honestly, he was about ready to get into yet another screaming match with his mother. Karen let out a sigh and rubbed her temples, and Mike knew she had yet another headache coming. Ever since the battle at the Starcourt mall, the woman seemed to have wintered a bit, losing weight and getting increasingly darker circles in her eyes. Usually, he would feel at least a bit guilty about it, but he was so angry at the moment he couldn’t even give a shit.

\- Listen honey, it’s just for six months! Your dad and I think that it will be good for you. Just, you know, start your freshman year away from all this chaos.

He knew she felt a bit guilty. El and Will had just left them, left Hawkins, a few days ago, and the daily radio messages weren’t nearly enough to help with how much they missed each other. Now his parents had decided to ship his to his aunt’s house, all they way in Connecticut, for the first halve of his first year of highscool.

Well, fuck that.

Mike didn’t remember neither his aunt or his cousin very well. He knew that they were, respectively his mother’s younger sister, and her daughter, who would be starting highschool the same year he would. They both didn’t have much communication with the rest of the family, choosing to live in na honest to God, village, in the deep east of Connecticut. A small community, his mother had promised, no crime, no danger, no government conspiracies. A good six months of isolation to get him nice and calm for his freshman year.

\- But mom! You can’t just, just tear is apart like this! Will and El left! You can’t just take me away too!

She ran her hands through her bleached blond hair and sighed.

\- Honey, I’m sorry, but this isn’t your choice, you are going to Connecticut and there’s nothing you can do to change that.

He let out a frustrated growl and stomped out of the room, rushing up the stair with the full intention of aggressively slamming his door and screaming into his pillow. Karen sighed, and glanced at Ted, who only offered her a small shrug.

\- Nancy dear, maybe you could talk to him?

The younger woman nodded and left, and Karen knew she was upset too. The kids were tight, maybe a bit too tight, the mused, and she knew that Mike would hold it against her for a long time for separating them in a time like this. She watched, feeling a bit helpless, as her daughter rushed up the stairs after the young boy.

\- Mike?

She said, knocking softly on his room’s door. Mike got up, albeit begrudgingly, from his bed, and unlocked it for her. His checks were red, blotchy with anger, and she swore she could see the faintest outline of tears in his eyes. She sighed, and moved to wrap her arms around him, he sunk his head in her shoulder, in a rare show of affection and vulnerability. She took a moment to notice how tall he had gotten, and allowed her hold on him to become tighter.  
\- What if we’re not friends anymore?

He mumbled so lowly she had to take a moment to realize he actually had spoken, she rubbed small circles on his back, in a small gesture to keep talking. She was listening.

\- I mean, what if I leave, and when I come back, everyone changed too much? We won’t be friends and then El will break up with me, and...

\- Hey, hey, stop that.

  
She shushed him .

\- Of course they’ll keep being your friends, idiot! It’s just six months! Just, think of it as an extra long summer camp!

He seemed to calm down a bit, and took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes tightly and sinking a bit more in her embrace. After a few seconds, he wiggled his body a bit, and she let him go.

She watched as he made his way to his bed, and ducked under it, pulling out his walkie-talkie, and pressing the button on the side.

\- Guys, do you copy?

It takes a few seconds, and Nancy closes the door behind her and takes a seat by his desk.

\- Mike? It’s Dustin.

\- Lucas and I are here too.

Max’s voice comes a bit later, and Mike lets out a relieved sigh.

\- I’m calling a meeting. Come here in like, half an hour, it’s important.

\- She’s sending you where?

Will’s voice comes a bit clipped through cerebro, and he can hear El let out a distressed noise in the background. By his side, Dustin fiddles a bit with the frequencies, and Lucas and Max watch, cross legged and angry as Mike sights for the millionth time that day.

\- Elmwood, Connecticut. To spends six months with my aunt and my cousin. She says it’ll be good for me or something. Get away from the chaos and all.

Dustin rubs his hands on his face and Lucas lets out a groan. Max sends him an understanding look, and mike has to remind himself that she had moved away from home as well.

\- Maybe it won’t be so bad, I mean, your cousin might be cool right?

He nods a bit and fiddles with his hoodie, his hands are clammy with sweat despite the slowly cooling weather. Summer was ending and soon enough autumn would come around. The days were getting shorter and shorter, and the hazy warmth was shifting into crisp freshness.

\- What if we make you a cerebro? Then we can talk and try and schedule some time for us.

Dustin suggested in an soft placating tone, and Mike took a second to notice how much it reminded him of Steve. The long haired teen was on the bottom of the hill, talking with Nancy and Robin. He could faintly hear their laughter if he strained hips ears enough and he had to swallow a lump in his throat from how much he would miss them.

They banter a bit, and eventually convince the teens to drive them all to the wheeler household. It’s a chaotic ride, them all squished on Steve’s backseat, refusing to be apart for as long as Mike stayed, he would be leaving in two days, his mother deciding to tell him last minute so he couldn’t come up with a way to escape his fate, and they were running short on time.

Karen couldn’t really refuse when her son all but demanded her to drive them to the nearest hardware store and pay for the supplies needed for building the massive radio station Dustin had planned for him. A smaller, more precise version of cerebro, as if to make sure he wouldn’t get caught up in any Russian conspiracies. She felt guilty enough to help them build the technological monstrosity and didn’t complain about the noise or how long it took.

Later that evening, when everyone left, and Mike had packed their newest creation in a duffle bag and shoved it under his bed, his mother gathered him up in his arms after serving his favorite dishes in the dinner table.

\- You know this is all for your own good right?

\- I know mom.

He sighed, closed his eyes and took a moment to remind himself of how much he would miss her.

The goodbyes were tearful and a bit too long. He could see the bus drives get increasingly more impatient as Dustin had hugged him for the fifth time in a span of 10 minutes. El, Will and Joyce had all joined them at the bus station, the older woman claiming that she owed him a big goodbye hug.

\- We’ll talk a lot right?

Will had asked him tearfully, and Mike forced himself to look calm and sure of the situation, he nodded fervently and hugged his best friend tightly. Even thought Will had moved away, the towns were close enough for them to see each other almost frequently, Elmwood, however, was a good 16 hour bus trip to reach, and school wouldn’t allow for them to have that. Karen had been very persistent on him staying the school breaks with his aunt as well, so that was the last time they would see each other in a good 6 months.  
El had pressed a firm kiss in his lips, na unspoken agreement that they weren’t necessarily dating anymore. Don’t get him wrong, he loved her with all his heart, and didn’t want to break up at all, but Joyce had given them a good old heart to heart, and actually convinced them to keep things more platonic for a while. Something about becoming their own people apart before trying to become something together, and healthy relationships, or whatever. Mike wholeheartedly disagreed, but the look on El’s eye told him that that was exactly what she needed, so he complied.

To the bus driver’s annoyed grunt, Mike forced himself to give his friends one last quick group hug, and hopped into the bus. Lucas shot him one last firm nod, and Mike actually felt a bit relieved, the party would live on.

He watched, through na open window, his friend’s screams get lower and lower, he could see Steve and Robin’s ugly pizza place t-shirts sticking out in the crowd, Max’s bright red hair becoming a smaller and smaller spot of color in a sea of people, and His mother and sister’s yelled “I love you”s become lost in the wind.

Mike closed his eyes, and let a few tears squeeze their way through his lashes.

  
When mike left the bus, in Elmwood Connecticut, his entire body hurt.

16 hours in a bus and na additional 2 hours to actually reach the small, in the middle of nowhere, village his aunt lived in were not kind to his body. His back popped audibly when he stretched his arms, and his shoulders hurt from holding his big, filled to the brim bags. He looked around, trying to find whoever was supposed to pick him up. The bus stop was nothing but an Ivy covered sign and a bench, covered by a structure of slowly rotting wood.

\- Mike!

He turned to see his cousin, walking down the small dirt road that lead to the bus stop.

The one thing all their generation from the family seemed to have inherited was the dark eyes, dark hair and freckles. His cousin had the same freckles he had splattered all over her face, and the same dark, doe eyes he and his mother shared. She had straight across bangs that clearly had been flattened out with an flat iron, her hair was curly, like his would be if he didn’t kill it daily with his own flat iron, and reached a bit bellow her chin, fanning out slightly around her face. She wore weird flowy clothes in a periwinkle shade that seemed a bit too light for the cooling weather, and even more strangely, she was barefoot.

\- Hey Erin.

He did his best to sound cheerful, but he was just too tired too actually manage to be even close to convincing. Erin didn’t seem to mind, offering him an understanding smile, and took a few of the bags out of his hands.

\- We’re gonna go walking okay? It’s only half na our if we take the path through the woods.

Mike suppressed the urge to groan, and forced his aching legs to keep working. Weeks in his basement playing D&D didn’t make him the most fit person in the world, and the whole traveling to another state and not sleeping for 18 hours thing wasn’t quite helping his body. From the corner of his eye, he watched Erin hum happily as they entered the woods. The sky was slowly turning from bright orange to soft purple, and Mike really didn’t want to stay in the woods until the dark. Too many bad memories involving flesh eating monsters from other dimension.

\- So! How was the trip? I wanted for me and mom to go and pick you up, but she said it would be too much work, so she made me wait to finally meet you!

Her voice is cheery, and Mike wonders for a moment how can someone be so happy in the middle of the woods. Maybe he was getting paranoid, her feet were all dirty, he noticed, and she didn’t seem to mind the foods knocking against her toes to the occasional sharp something on the ground.

\- You’ re not wearing any shoes.

He says and immediately feels a bit dumb for stating the obvious.

\- And you are wearing a pair of them.

She answers and there’s na amused quirk to her eyebrow. Mike immediately thinks of Robin, and her snappy humor, and misses home. They walk in silence for a while, and he grows increasingly uncomfortable with it.

\- The trip was okay – he says – a bit of a bore, and my body is all sore from the bus ride, but i guess it could be worse.

She snickers.

\- The bus driver is kind of a Grinch, isn’t he?

\- Totally.

\- He’s been working for the bus line for years now. He tries to kick me and my friends out at any opportunity. I mean, Allen tried to push the accelerator once, and now we;’re trouble children, you know?

He laughs a bit and feels himself relax. He didn’t realize how tense his shoulders were until that moment.

\- Once, my friend Max stole her brother’s car and drove us and our unconscious babysitter for a good few miles, and then almost crashed the car.

Erin laughs incredulously, and her matted curly hair shakes wildly around her head, a bit like Dustin’s would, and Mike smiles a bit more.

He could work with that.


	2. Wrapped inside a cocoon made of flesh and bone. Doesn’t really matter where you come from.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We’re home  
> \- aurora

Mike looked around the room he would be sharing with his cousin.

There were dozens of glimmering charms hanging from the ceiling, crystals and colored pieces of glass and stone. The wall in front of their beds, where the door was, was painted in different shades of blue, purple, orange and pink, imitating a sky shifting from sunrise to sundown. There was a large window, with a view to the small garden behind the house. Their beds were each in an opposite wall, the pushed against the window’s wall. There were countless drawings and pictures stuck to the wall where his cousin’s bed was rested against, but “his”wall seemed to have been recently cleaned off, with remains of tape and paper stubbornly stuck in it’s pale surface.

\- It’s for you to put whatever you want in it.

She offered helpfully, and Mike nodded. There was a big wooden wardrobe against the sky wall, and she helpped him to get all his stuff in the halve of it she separated for him, well, almost halve, her clothes were tightly packed and invaded his part a bit, and he immediately felt guilty about stealing her space like that. She didn’t seem to mind much, and kept that small smile in her lips, as if he had told her a secret. She was nice, he guessed, a bit odd, and quiet, she reminded him of Will, with big eyes twinkling with wonder, and his heart immediately twisted a bit.

\- You okay cousin?

He did his best to seem better, and nodded, as she pushed his last coat into the depths of the wardrobe, their shoes were thrown messily in the bottom of it, and he felt a bit relieved that she actually owned some.

\- Where’s your mom?

She shrugged a bit and her curly hair bounced around her face.

\- Out of town, she’s not home much because of work, so it’s just me most of the time. My friends come to sleepovers though! And now you’re here too.

Her smile stretches a bit, and he feels a bit bad for her. Maybe her mom was like his dad, he thought, oblivious, aloof, disconnected to his family and borderline negligent.

She ushered him to the bathroom and told him she’s gonna warm up dinner. He offered to help, but she said he could clean the dishes afterwards. It sounded like an okay deal, so he grabbed the fluffy white towel she offered him, a change of clothes, and went to the door she instructed him to go to.

The bathroom’s door had no lock, and the walls were covered in cream tiles with flower prints on them, there was a ceramic bathtub, and a copper colored shower nozzle. A few dozens of colorful glass bottles lined the breastwork of the window behind the bathtub, they were labeled, and Mike felt tempted for a few seconds to take a long, long bath.

He sighed, and stripped, turning the faucet, and allowed the stream of scalding hot water spray against his skin. He closed his eyes, and thought about Will. About El, and Dustin and Lucas, and even Max. The lump on his throat seemed to grow bigger and the familiar sting of tears behind his eyes got even stronger.

He washed his hair and body with anger and determination, getting all the sweat and the familiar smell of home off his body. His skin was turning a sick shade of pink, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

He kinda hated his mom right now.

\- Mike? You ok in there?

He startled a bit at his cousin’s concerned voice.

\- Yeah! Just give me a sec!

He turned the faucet and hurried out of the shower. There was a small pile of towels by the sink, and he grabbed one, and dried his body quickly, wincing slightly at the stinging sensation at his almost raw skin. He put on some pajamas, plain sky blue, and soft, and left the bathroom. A puff of white steam trailing after him as soon as he opened the door.

He trailed to the kitchen, where Erin was waiting sitting at a small wooden table, with two plates and two pots, one of them had fluffy white rice, and the other a thick mixture of black beans and pork.

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

\- It’s called feijoada, it’s a Brazilian dish. You’ll like it.

He sat across from her, and got himself some of the food. It was actually tasty and filling, and most importantly warm. Even with the scalding hot shower, he felt a cold numbness under his skin, and the warm meal seemed to help to erase a bit of the uncomfortable feeling.

\- Hey, Erin?

She looked up at him, with those same big inquisitive eyes.

\- My friend Dustin, he’s like, really smart, and he helped me build this small radio station thingy? It’s so i call talk to them whenever I want. Do you think we could build it? It has to be in a higher place.

She hummed a bit, stopped chewing, swallowed and twirled a curl of her hair in between long fingers. The nail polish on her nails glittered against the kitchen’s yellowish light.

\- The house is already pretty high up. You didn’t notice it because we took a shortcut through the woods, but we’re actually on top of a hill. We could build it in the tool shed so the rain won’t get to it.

He nodded a bit more excitedly.

\- That would actually work!

She smiled.

\- My friends are coming over tomorrow. They could help. Sam is super good with all these tech stuff.

He swallowed a bit anxiously. The prospect of meeting his cousin’s friends so early on sitting heavily against his stomach.

\- Hey, don’t worry! They are really nice! I promise!

She smiled encouragingly at him, and he nodded slowly. Erin’s eyes had that excited twinkle his mom’s eyes would get when she had her mind set on an idea, and he didn’t feel particularly inclined on going against her at that moment.

He shoved another spoonful of food in his mouth, trailing his fingertip on the engravings of flowers on the handle of the knife set on the table. The kitchen was cluttered, with pots hanging on the walls and cabinets full of flasks and books. The oven was opened, turned on, warming the night’s cooling air. He breathed in, the smell of pork and garlic filling up his lungs. There was an underlying sweet scent that seemed to cling to the whole home, and the smell of moist soil came in gently with the soft breeze coming from the open window.

He finished his meal rather quickly, and once again stretched his arms up in an attempt to soothe the ache on his back from the bus trip. His cousin finished soon after him, and helped him get all the dishes off the table.

\- I promised I’d wash them.

He said as she reached out for a sponge and soap. She looked up at him exasperatedly, and sighed, handing him over the sponge, pulling one of the chairs from the dinner table and sitting on it to make him company.

As he scrubbed their plates, she rambled to him, about her school, about her friends, about the new plant she’d been growing in her garden and the new song that her favorite artist had just released.

Mike couldn’t help but notice that she never once mentioned her mother.

Once he was done with the dishes and washed his hands with actual hand soap, because “ we’re not heathens Michael”, he allowed her top usher him back to their now shared room.

The dangling crystals glittered almost as if in welcome to him as they entered the room, and the sudden realization that that would be his home for the next few months hit him like a train. 

He didn’t mean to get that sad all of a sudden, guilt washing over him almost as suddenly as the sorrow. His cousin had been nothing but inviting to him, and there he was, almost crying like a little kid.

\- Mike.

He looked at her, and flinched, eyes widening at the sheer seriousness of her expression. There was sympathy in her gaze.

\- It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.

She cooed softly, wrapping her thin arms around him. He was a lot taller then her, he noticed, and rested his head on top of hers. The sting behind his eyes finally becoming too much, and the tears sprung free, running down his cheeks.

\- We're going to be okay.

She whispered again, and for the first time since his mother told him he was leaving, the unconfortable cold under his skin somewhat faded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! Please do comment, I always appreciate suggestions, opinions or even just a simple hello.  
> Love, Yui ^^

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Please do comment, I always appreciate suggestions, opinions or even just a simple hello.  
> Love, Yui ^^


End file.
